Adherents.com: Religious Groups in Literature

34,420 citations from literature (mostly science fiction and fantasy) referring to real churches, religious groups, tribes, etc. [This database is for literary research only. It is not intended as a source of information about religion.]

"Picard doubted that he would ever know exactly what motivations had driven Captain Lucius Aelius Sejanus. That Sejanus was truly a madman, Picard did not doubt--but underlying the madness there had been a brilliance and a capacity to make things happen of a sort which altered the course of civilizations.

Like Julius Caesar, Wesley realized, in the play he'd just finished reading. Even after his assassination, Caesar had seemed to remain on stage, to be as much a participant in Rome's political maneuverings as any of his assassins. " [More, pg. 6-7.]; Pg. 82: "But why? He wasn't Bobo Bogdonovich, any more than he was Sherlock Holmes or Henry IV or any of the other guises he had assumed in the holodecks. "

Pg. 144: "...what I considered some required reading--everything ranging from the annals of Garth of Izar to Julius Caesar's De Bello Gallico. "; Pg. 198: "James Kirk wrote an autobiography, you know. Much of it was dismissed by critics as a collection of tall tales. Some believed that Kirk had a penchant for exaggerating. Outrageous stories of planets of sorcery, or confrontations with Greek gods or Abraham Lincoln... "

Pg. 19: "No matter-antimatter reactor, no matter how efficient, could drive engines to attain or exceed warp 10, which was the absolute speed limit of the universe. According to the relativity equations of the great Earth scientist, Einstein, a ship traveling at that speed would have to possess infinite mass, which was clearly impossible. "; Pg. 155: "The buildings surrounding them were Cubist, vaguely reminiscent of the twentieth-century architecture of Paolo Soleri. Rather than individual buildings that stood side by side, these were irregularly clustered atop one another like crystalline formations. "

"'The details are unknown, sir. The Crockett was in the Qizan Qal'at system when they relayed a message to Starbase 1 that a Klingon warship had arrived. When the Crockett didn't respond to subsequent messages, Starfleet sent the Bridger to investigate.' Data paused... 'When the Bridger arrived, they found only debris in the area.' " [Some other refs. to the starship Crockett, here, elsewhere. The names 'Crockett' and 'Bridger' were probably to chosen to underscore a sense that this region of space was the frontier for Starfleet.]

"I swear by Apollo the physician, by Aesculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea... and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgment the following Oath:.... I will prescribe regimen for the good of my patients... according to my ability and my judgment and never to do harm to anyone.

...the Hippocratic oath, that had saved her. Hippocrates, Father of medicine, a Greek physician who came from a famous family of priest physicians, and who wrote more than seventy treatises on medicine . . . "

"It continued for what seemed to Troi to be hours; at one point, the cargohold became a Hieronymous Bosch vision of hell, with dozens of crew members held by invisible fields--all of them reaching, screaming in desperation for Deanna. But T'Reth remained steadfast throughout, helping Deanna maintain her tenuous control... "

"'According to our historical data banks, the time period from 1692 to 1725 was considered the height of the age of piracy,' Data replied, 'when freebooters such as Blackbeard, Calico Jack Rackam, Captain Kidd, and Henry Morgan plied the seas in sailing vessels such as the one I have re-created here...' "

"'She is called the Spartacus. The warp signature has already been modified.'

Chakotay nodded with satisfaction. 'I like that name.'

...'Let me guess,' said B'Elanna Torres. 'Spartacus was some ancient human who had a revolution somewhere.'

Captain Chakotay smiled. 'That's right. He was a slave and a gladiator who led a revolt against Rome, the greatest power of its day. For two years, he held out against every Roman legion thrown against him.' " [More.]

"Soon after, Janeway got the opportunity to meet one of her heroes--the 20th-century female pilot Amelia Earhart. Apparently, Earhart had been abducted from Earth in 1937 by an alien species and brought to the Delta Quadrant, where she was preserved in suspended animation. "

Pg. 12: "'...Someday we will get back to the Federation, and when we do, we will be the modern-day Marco Polo of the Delta Quadrant, bringing back vital information about new territory that no human--and no Vulcan--has ever explored.' ";

Pg. 108: Extended discussion about Fletcher Christian, captain of the Bounty, as portrayed in 'Mutiny on the Bounty'

"'There are a lot of places and times before direct download was possible. Galen, Hippocrates--it would be interesting to talk to Hippocrates. But if I had to choose only one, I think it would be Louis Pasteur. You remember who he was?'

The question was rhetorical. Kes never forgot anything. 'The first human to create a vaccine,' she answered promptly.

"'If that is the case, Admiral,' Calhoun replied, 'if you truly think that running into a figure of mythology or history such as the Great Bird of the Galaxy is too preposterous, then I take it you will not want to hear about it should we happen to encounter . . . oh, I don't know . . Apollo?'

'Yes!' She snapped her fingers as the memory came back. 'Jack the Ripper. Thank you. You know, I have to tell you, Admiral, in comparison to those incidents, a giant flaming bird seems a fairly modest claim.' "

"'Sure, B'Elanna,' Paris said. 'Tell me again this empty place doesn't bother you. Tell me it doesn't' make you think of Pompeii or the Marie Celeste or Ghitikana.'

'All right,' she said. 'It doesn't remind me of Pompeii because the people are gone. It doesn't remind me of the Marie Celeste because I have no idea what that was. And it doesn't remind me of Ghitikana because those people didn't disappear, they beamed themselves to another planet. It just took the Federation two decades to find them.' "

Pg. 34: "She had previously served aboard the Jefferson and the Olympic... "; Pg. 35: "He felt like Columbus or Magellan, prepared to venture beyond the very edge of explored space. Here there be dragons, he thought. "; Pg. 266: "Mass transit as designed by M. C. Escher, Picard thought, astounded by the sight. "

Pg. 98: "His stern features were adorned by a flowing, snow-white bears; Picard found himself reminded of face of Michelangelo's famous portrait of Moses, and was momentarily disappointed that He wasn't actually carrying two inscribed stone tablets. "; Pg. 103: "...or the one who turned out to be Jack the Ripper? "

Pg. 1: "Tom Paris... had developed a number of ways to cheat the routine, but the only one that consistently provided what Tom wanted--the ineffable thrill that accompanied danger--was what he had termed the Yeager maneuver, after an ancient but renowned pilot of the twentieth century. Now he had the chance to try it again. "; Pg. 2: "First would come the mesosphere, where molecular structure was thin and porous, bleeding into the stratosphere, where atmospheric pressure heightened and friction became a genuine concern; finally, the descent into the full oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and the landing. The Yeager maneuver was accomplished just at the transition from mesosphere to stratosphere. "

[Historical story of the deadly storm that hit the Telstra Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race 1999 is recounted, pg. 164-166, and Hugo van Kretschmar is mentioned on pg. 166. He was the "commodore of the local yacht club ".]

Pg. 23: shuttlecraft Turing; Pg. 54: "...a blurry illustration. Riker recognized it as the da Vinci drawing usually referred to as Vitruvian Man: a nude human male with his arms and legs in two different positions, perhaps the most recognized anatomical drawing known to humanity. " [An adaptation of this drawing is also featured on the cover.]; Pg. 227: "It was a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, that was indisputable. But it was not one he recognized. An unknown work? After nine hundred years? " [More about da Vinci, e.g. pg. 230.]; Pg. 306: "'The Archimedes is ready to depart...' "

Pg. 235: "'Are you saying, then, that you do not remember all the lives you have lived before, that you do not recall being Brahms or Leonardo or Alexander . . .?' "; Pg. 321: "'Yes,' the captain agreed, and Data thought he sounded wistful. 'I was glad to have met him. He was a remarkable individual. Many remarkable individuals,' he amended. 'Brahms, Leonardo, Alexander--who knows how many others? I seriously doubt the universe has seen the last of the man behind all those names.' "

"'There is gold scattered under our beds,' wrote T. E. Lawrence of his archaeological villa in Babylon. Picard knew this particular tale of Earthly archaeology well, and was reminded of it as he materialized aboard the Darwin. Thomas Lawrence and Leonard Woolley had provisioned their villa with a huge fireplace... " [More about Lawrence, pg. 33-34. The Darwin is the main starship featured in the novel.]; Pg. 128: Einstein; Pg. 166: "...as he bade farewell to the universe of Einstein, Hawking, and Cochrane. "

Pg. 31: "The object utterly defeated the eye, sometimes appearing to be a tangle of impossibly intersecting Platonic shapes, planes, and lines, other times taking on the aspect of a Gothic cathedral. It brought to mind the visually deceptive works of the ancient Terran artist M. C. Escher. "; Pg. 39: "Bashir couldn't help but vent some relief of his own, 'Thank you, Sir Isaac Newton.' "

"The sight was troubling. ' 'To seek out new life, and new civilizations . . .' ' Picard recited quietly when she arrived at his side. 'Zephram Cochrane's own words . . . When Charles Darwin set out on the H.M.S. Beagle, on his journey into the unknown, he sailed without a single musket.'

Beverly's tone was gentle. 'That was another time.' "

historical people

galaxy

2500

Drake, David. The Tank Lords. New York: Baen (1997); pg. 370.

Pg. 370: "Armor alone is not adequate protection. Stationary fortresses can always be battered down--as the French learned in 1940, having forgotten the lesson Caesar taught their ancestors two millennia before. "; Pg. 376: Gatling, designer of guns

historical people

galaxy

2500

Leigh, Stephen. Dark Water's Embrace. New York: Avon (1998); pg. 268.

"It's Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation. Simpler, anyway, than divine intervention, which would seem to be the only other possibility. I've been making love to both of them. Since I can't produce the sperm myself, I must have somehow transferred Elio's to Maire. "

"One must go far back in history, to Alcibiades during the Peloponnesian Wars, Benedict Arnold in the War of American Independence, or Sun Wan Lu in the Faraday Rebellion, to find a military leader so gifted, and yet so controversial and doomed by his own brilliance to a final, irrevocable downfall. "

Pg. 24: "Her face reminded him of the famous bust of Nefertiti in the Berlin Museum archive. "; Pg. 305: "This would make him the most famous scientist in the Commonwealth, placing him on a level with Newton and Einstein and Kurita. "; Pg. 308: "It had to, since it was destined to be filed alongside On the Origin of Species, A General Theory of Relativity, and Proposals for a Special Gravitational Algorithm for Space-Plus Routing. "

"...that had come down on the Shackleton's launch. " [Other refs. to this ship, named after the famed Antarctic explorer]

historical people

galaxy

4000

Benford, Gregory. Furious Gulf. New York: Bantam (1994); pg. 16.

[Actual year unknown.] "I have conferred with the most ancient records you carry in chip-library. Interesting, the term you use is actually derived from the name of the man on Old Earth who invented the flush toilet. An Englishman, legend has it, he made a fortune and benefited all humankind. His name, Thomas Crapper, has come to be-- "

"When Odysseus returned from his terror-haunted voyage he spared Penelope's ears the incredible details of his journey. When Richard Lion-Heart, freed finally from his dungeon, came home from the danger-filled years of the Crusades, he did not assault Queen Berengaria's sensibilities with horrorfull anecdotes; he simply greeted her and unlocked her chastity belt. Neither will I, gentle reader, profane your hearing with the dangers and despairs of Bill's journeyings, for they are beyond imagining. Suffice to say he did it. He reached the T.R.C. "

"Leonidas and the Three Hundred, Maccabeus and Masada, Zizka and his war wagons, Castle Saint Elmo and the Siege of Malta, Hougemont and La Haye-Sainte, Travis and Bowie, Gordon and Khartoum, Leningrad, the Warsaw Ghetto, First Tannerman, Second Redwing--the list went on and on, and if all too many of those desperate stands had ended in death and defeat, a handful had not. "

'The speaker was Marcus Porcius Cato, a senator of the Roman Republic, a political unit of ancient Earth. It had defeated its chief rival, Carthage, but had not destroyed it. Cato held that Rome could not be secure until Carthage was entirely destroyed--and eventually, sir, it was.'

'But what is Carthage to us, young man?'

'There are such things as analogies.' "

historical people

galaxy

13560

Herbert, Frank. Dune Messiah. New York: Ace (1987; c. 1969); pg. 135.

"'...What little information we have about the old times, the pittance of data which the Butlerians left us, Korba has brought it for you. Start with the Genghis Khan.'

"Voltaire without his words was like Samson without his locks, Alexander without his sword, Plato without Ideas, Don Quixote without his fantasy, Don Juan without women . . . and Fray Tomas de Torquemada without heretics, without apostates, without unbelievers like Voltaire. "

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